By Jim Dent –
Steinmark’s memory lives on in his native state, Colorado, just as it does at the University of Texas.Forty-seven years ago, Freddie Joe Steinmark was honored as the greatest high school athlete in Colorado, just a few months after leading the Wheat Ridge Farmers to their first state championship. That year, he won the Golden Helmet Award as Colorado’s best scholar-athlete.
Almost a half century later, Steinmark’s memory still lives in his native state, just as it does at the University of Texas, where he was an All-Southwest Conference safety in 1969 and a member of the national championship team that defeated Arkansas 15-14 in the “Big Shoot-out.’’
No doubt, Colorado fans have never forgotten him. The Freddie Steinmark Award, launched in 1972, is still awarded to the best male and female high school athletes of the year.
Most of all, Coloradans remember his performance against Lakewood High School in one of the biggest high school games of 1966. Because of the 20-year dominance of Lakewood, Wheat Ridge had not won a district title since 1946. The Tigers were 38-1-1 for the previous four years. Even the Wheat Ridge players held doubts they could win.
“We were intimidated by Lakewood,’’ Wheat Ridge quarterback Roger Behler said. “They were the same size, but they always beat us at football. Tom Hancock was a hell of a coach, and he built the Tigers into a great program.’’
That year, Wheat Ridge countered with a new coach from Texas, John “Red’’ Coats. The players were impressed with Coats because he brought the Dallas Cowboys-style multiple offense to the team. He was a bowlegged, freckle-faced, wisecracking coach who feared nothing.
Coats was blessed with two great running backs: Steinmark and Bobby Mitchell. Steinmark was the 5-foot-10-inch, 145-pound scatback and Mitchell a bigger, long-striding power runner. The Farmers were 4-0 going into the biggest game of ’66 and Lakewood was also undefeated. Everything seemed in order for the Farmers to break the Lakewood jinx if Steinmark’s fractured right hand did not slow them down.
Wheat Ridge was 13-0 at halftime, but the score was tied 13-13 going into the fourth quarter. Facing a third-and-eight at the Lakewood 23-yard line, Coats called Behler to the sideline time-out and said, “Just give the damn ball to Freddie!’’
On 42-trap, Steinmark took off up the middle like a rifle shot. The hole was opened by guard Stan Politano. Steinmark planted his right foot and swerved to the left sideline. Denver Post high school writer Irv Moss once wrote, “Steinmark changes direction like a fly in flight.’’ In the blink of an eye, Steinmark shot back across the field, all the way to the right sideline. At the Lakewood 30-yard line, Steinmark straightened his course and headed for the end zone. No one was going to catch him. The official distance was 77 yards, but he ran about twice that distance.
Wheat Ridge fans carried Steinmark off the field after the 19-13 victory. Holding a statistics sheet while meeting the press, Hancock said, “That young man (Steinmark) is one of the most remarkable athletes I’ve ever seen. According to our statistics, he had 18 unassisted tackles.’’
In the jubilant locker room after the game, Coats bellowed, “Here’s what I think we should do. I think we should go out and win ourselves a Colorado state championship.’’ It was an ambitious goal since Wheat Ridge had never won state.
Wheat Ridge shredded its next five opponents by the combined score of 173-13, then rolled through the playoffs all the way to the state championship game against the George Washington Patriots of Denver. On a frigid and windy day at Bears Stadium, Behler rolled right and found himself throwing into a gale. Because of Steinmark’s speed, Behler heaved the ball as far as he could and Steinmark still had to slow down to catch it at the 10-yard line, trotting into the end zone for a 6-0 lead. The Farmers led 12-7 in the final five minutes as Steinmark intercepted two passes inside the 30-yard line to seal the championship.
To the surprise of everyone, Steinmark was not recruited by a single Division I university. Meanwhile, Mitchell was sought by almost 100 teams. Not even the University of Colorado, located less than 30 miles away, offered Steinmark a scholarship.
Late in the recruiting season, the University of Texas was the first big-time program to develop an interest in Steinmark. Texas defensive coordinator Mike Campbell was watching Mitchell in a game when he noted the quickness of another player, Steinmark. Campbell convinced head coach Darrell Royal to watch game film. Royal then dispatched Texas assistant coach Fred Akers on a fact-finding mission to Wheat Ridge. Akers knocked on the Steinmark door, and a slight youngster greeted him with a big smile. Akers actually thought it was Steinmark’s younger brother, Sammy, who was six years younger.
“The kid looked like he was 15 years old,’’ Akers recalled. “At first, I couldn’t believe we were recruiting him.’’
On his recruiting trip, Steinmark feared that the coaches in Austin would take one look at his small frame and send him home. So he wore high-heeled cowboy boots, hoping he would look taller.
After the two-hour flight, Steinmark was escorted into Royal’s office. He sat across the long, oaken desk from the legendary coach and listened to words he could barely believe.
“Son, let me tell you something very interesting,’’ Royal said. “I didn’t get to the University of Oklahoma until 1946 because of the war. I was 25 and just about your size. I quarterbacked the Oklahoma Sooners to a national championship. On defense, I broke the record for interceptions. I don’t care how big you are. I was just a runt and I got it done.’’
That day Steinmark committed to the University of Texas. Playing for the freshman Shorthorns team during an unbeaten five-game schedule, Steinmark led the conference in interceptions with four. He returned a punt 76 yards for a touchdown against Texas A&M.
Everything was clicking for the young man. Freddie was making good grades, attending daily Catholic mass and living the ideal life. He strolled campus with blond-haired beauty Linda Wheeler, his girlfriend since the eighth grade.
On the first day of preseason drills in 1968, Steinmark replaced Scooter Monzingo as the safety on the varsity defense. It was rare when Royal began a season with a sophomore in the starting lineup, but Steinmark, with his speed and agility, offered the perfect antidote to some of the country’s best passing attacks.
The Longhorns won eight straight games and pummeled Tennessee 36-13 in the Cotton Bowl, finishing the season as the third-ranked team in the country. Steinmark had led the league with five interceptions and the prospects for his junior season seemed even brighter.
The start of the 1969 season generated enormous hope as America’s sporting press trumpeted Texas as a possible national champion. The ABC network convinced Texas and Arkansas to move their mid-October game to December 6 with the prospect of playing on national television for the collegiate title.
Steinmark was named to the preseason All-Southwest Conference team. But he had developed a bad limp, and the Texas coaches were keeping an eye on him. In the early part of the season, Steinmark tried to hide his pain. Finally, Akers insisted that he undergo treatment from trainer Frank Medina, who initially diagnosed the injury as a charley horse that would heal in time. Steinmark limped his way through the season, intercepting only one pass but somehow holding on to his starting job.
In early December, Arkansas and Texas were 9-0 and ranked one-two on December 6 in Fayetteville. ABC’s dream game had come to fruition. Steinmark was limping so badly in pregame warm-ups that his friend and defensive tackle Bill Zapalac began to call him “Ratso,’’ after the gimpy, third-rate con man played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie “Midnight Cowboy.’’
The Texas coaches considered benching Steinmark but recognized he had played a major role in the team’s 18-game winning streak.
With Razorback Stadium packed and roaring, Arkansas built a 14-0 lead through three quarters. Hogs wide receiver Chuck Dicus had badly beaten Steinmark for one of the touchdowns. Miraculously, Street opened the fourth quarter by rolling left, then splitting the Arkansas defense with a 42-yard dash to the end zone. He also converted the two-point play. With 6:32 remaining, he passed 43 yards to Randy Peschel on fourth down to set up another touchdown. Jim Bertelsen’s 1-yard touchdown run, and Happy Feller’s extra point kick, made it 15-14.
That deficit was almost erased on Arkansas’s next possession. The Hogs targeted Steinmark on a post route by Dicus. The little safety showed his gumption by grabbing the All- American wide receiver’s jersey as he ran past. The penalty moved the Hogs to the 7-yard line, but at least they did not score. Three plays later, Steinmark’s gamble paid off as Danny Lester intercepted quarterback Bill Montgomery at the goal, killing the threat.
Three days after the victory, Steinmark finally confessed his pain to Royal. The coach sent him for X-rays, and a few hours later, Steinmark learned he might have a tumor at the tip of his left thighbone. He was flown to Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center and a biopsy was scheduled. Royal caught the next flight back from New York, where his team was receiving the MacArthur Trophy as the national champion. He paced the hospital’s hallways, repeating the same phrase: “I can’t believe this is happening.’’
The biopsy revealed that Steinmark had played most of the season with almost an inch of his femur devoured by cancer. The leg was amputated at the hip. But Steinmark was not about to be beaten by osteosarcoma. He was up and walking on crutches within a few days, and soon announced that he would stand on the sideline during the Texas-Notre Dame Cotton Bowl. He watched as his team rallied once more in the fourth quarter to defeat the Irish 21-17.
During the next several months, Steinmark went to the White House to meet President Richard Nixon. He learned to water ski and play golf on one leg. But his condition continued to deteriorate.
Over the Christmas holidays of 1970, Freddie and Linda went to see the newly released “Love Story,’’ a movie about two Harvard students, Jennifer Cavilleri (Ali McGraw) and Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O’Neal). Oliver marries Jenny, and she is soon stricken with deadly leukemia.
Linda and Freddie were rendered speechless. After the movie, standing outside in the falling snow, Freddie leaned on his crutches with a tear rolling down his cheek. “We just watched our future,” he said.
Freddie died on June 6, 1971, and the service held in Denver drew one of the largest crowds the state had ever seen for a funeral.
The glorious life of Freddie Steinmark spanned 22 years, five months and nine days. He was one of the most courageous players ever, according to all who knew him.
“Freddie was George Gipp without all of the hype,” said his close friend and teammate Tom Campbell.
“Freddie gave us all a road map for life,’’ recalled former student trainer Spanky Stephens. Freddie Steinmark was a player not easily forgotten.
Jim Dent is the author of Courage Beyond the Game: The Freddie Steinmark Story, a biography of this Colorado high school player drafted by the University of Texas.